Misconceptions
by castrovalva9
Summary: One of the Tylers' neighbours has been observing Rose, Jackie, the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, and Mickey for a while now. This is her side of the story. Contains references to various episodes through Love & Monsters. Anonymous reviews now enabled!


Title: Misconceptions  
Author: castrovalva9  
Rating: PG  
Spoilers: references to various episodes through "Love & Monsters"  
Summary: One of the Tylers' neighbours has been observing Rose, Jackie, the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, and Mickey for a while now. This is her side of the story.  
Distribution: anywhere  
Disclaimer: "Doctor Who" is property of the BBC.  
Note: Beta read by Kara MT.

* * *

Rose Tyler doesn't even have her A-levels, but she has her wiles. Bold as brass, she is, what I call a real piece of work. And I should know; I've lived next door to the Tyler flat for seven years, and what I've learned would chill your blood.

Now, up until about two years, you wouldn't have guessed Rose had criminal tendencies. Back then, she was just an ordinary shop girl at Henrik's. Resentful about it, too, if you ever heard her talk. Complained about everything--having to deliver the lottery money, her hours, the pay. Like she deserved any better, after leaving school over the likes of that Jimmy Stone.

But like I said, two years ago things changed. That was when Henrik's blew up. Literally exploded. Rose came home untouched, but after that no one from these parts saw her for quite a while. Missing for a solid year, she was. Some even thought she'd been murdered. Her boyfriend, Mickey Smith--he was chief suspect, and a very suspicious one at that, taken in for questioning by the police five times. Mums wouldn't let their little ones out to play in their own gardens if they saw Mickey out and about.

Then one day, I heard this terrible groaning, wheezing noise nearby, and who should I see strutting up the stairs but Rose, at long last. She actually paraded into her mum's flat like she'd only been absent a day instead of a year. It turns out she was off gallivanting around the world with an older man, and not a word to her mum the entire time. Not so much as a postcard. Shamefully disrespectful, I call that.

Still, Rose was back, more or less safe and sound, excepting her virtue. Not that she had much of that left to lose after Jimmy Stone, I do think. But if she had, her new boyfriend took care of it. He was old enough to be her father, and he didn't even seem to have a proper name. Rose always just called him "Doctor," of all things. A self-bestowed title, I am quite certain, because one day I asked him how to treat my lumbago and he didn't know what to say, just muttered some nonsense about aliens in Downing Street and off he ran in that ridiculous leather jacket he forever wore.

(I should mention here the explosion that occurred at 10 Downing Street not so many hours later. Combined with the Henrik's incident, it made me wonder, but I unfortunately had not yet made all the necessary connections.)

At any rate, the Doctor and Rose swanned off together soon afterwards. Jackie Tyler tried not to talk about her daughter's absence, but the walls are thin in this building and without half trying, one could easily hear her wondering aloud if she'd ever see Rose alive again, and cursing the Doctor for luring her away. Me, I thought Jackie needn't worry--clearly Rose would come straggling home sooner or later, after the Doctor cast her off in favour of the next pretty young thing. He seemed exactly the sort to have had a whole string of them through the years, one after another after another. I'm sure Rose thought her relationship with the Doctor was special, different from all the others, but anyone with sense could tell it was just about sex. Why, once or twice I even saw that pair disappear into an old police box barely large enough to hold two people--if you have a dirty mind, you can imagine what they were getting up to inside of that thing.

Not that Jackie ever set the best example for her girl. The men she's had in and out of her flat, in the last year alone: There was that foreigner, and the one who liked his satsumas so much, and the young one, Elton, who pretended he was only stopping by all those times to fix the fuses. A likely story!

Not to say I told you so, but as I had predicted, the Doctor and Rose did part ways before too many months went by. On Christmas Eve, there came that nasty grunting sound I later realised must have been made by this Doctor's car. I never heard such an awful noise from a vehicle. Not that I've ever set eyes on it, of course. They must always leave it in the car park around the corner.

Be that as it may, that Christmas, Rose showed up again, with a different man. He was younger than the other one, and at least _he_ changed his clothes on occasion. But he seemed just as mental as the first one, and the exceedingly strange thing is that Rose calls _him_ "Doctor," too! It's like the original "Doctor" passed both his name and Rose down to the second "Doctor." Could the world become any sicker than that? I'm sure I don't know how.

Now, my friend Emma is an innocent one. She said maybe the two Doctors were the same man, that he'd had plastic surgery to change his looks. I told her she's been watching too many soap operas. No amount of plastic surgery could have fixed _those_ ears. No. Definitely different men. Definitely equally kinky.

You see, this second Doctor _licks _things. Not just postage stamps or envelopes or ice cream, but things no normal person should have his tongue on. The other day, right in the open with no shame at all, he licked Rose's wrist and then said something about testing for poison. Another time, I walked outside and caught him slobbering all over my hibiscus plant. He didn't even apologise, just rambled on for ages about how the plant was poorly cared for and wouldn't look so ugly if I added something called "Slitheen manure" to its soil. What a rude young man!

Also criminal. If you recollect the Henrik's and Downing Street disasters, it should come as no great surprise to learn of a similar episode with a connection to Rose and the Doctor. I happened to be skimming a story in "_The Mirror_" one evening about an explosion at a school--a _school_, of all places--and who should I spy in the crowd in the accompanying photo but Rose and that second Doctor. I thought, don't they look like those arsonists who get caught because they like to return to the scenes of their crimes, and that was when all the pieces fell into place inside my brain.

Rose and both Doctors are international terrorists.

Think about it: It accounts for their presence at those disaster sites, their lengthy absences, their talk of cities like Barcelona and Versailles where other tragedies have recently occurred. It also explains why there's been so much foolishness lately in the news about supposed aliens and spaceships. It's a government hoax to distract our attention from the truth.

I know what I know, but I suspect Rose and those Doctors will never be called to account for their evil deeds. It's become increasingly clear that they have what are known as "friends in high places." Harriet Jones, the prime minister herself, mentioned the Doctor in glowing terms on the telly. I do believe that first Doctor helped her get elected; cleared the field, so to speak, during that Downing Street incident that resulted in so many lost lives. And as for Rose and the second Doctor, at Christmastime I looked out my window and right there on _our_ little street, they were chattering with and hugging Prime Minister Jones like they were old friends.

How I long to go to the police with my suspicions, but when the prime minister herself is involved, what can one old lady like me do? It's a daunting prospect indeed, and I'd fear for my safety if word of my knowlege reached the wrong people.

I suppose, though, that I fear for my safety no matter what, when I consider what happened to Mickey Smith. He wasn't seen around the neighbourhood for a bit and there was talk about his absence. Well, I knew just who to see. I nipped down the hall to Jackie Tyler's and casually asked her a few questions over tea. Oh, she said flat out, Mickey went off travelling with Rose and the Doctor.

So, "travelling" is the new euphemism for whatever perversions three people alone together can get up to. Poor Mickey, waiting about for Rose for a full year and so lovesick he was desperate for whatever crumbs she would throw him. Desperate enough to share her with another man. He didn't deserve his fate. No, indeed. Because the next time Rose showed her face, only the Doctor was with her. Mickey was conspicuously missing. Still is, as a matter of fact. He didn't even give notice down at the garage. Oh, they say he posted a letter to them afterwards, claiming he had to go to the country to take care of a sick aunt, but anyone could have falsified that note. It was typed, and Mickey's final pay remains unclaimed.

Rose and that Doctor tired of him, I suppose. I'm sure he wasn't depraved enough for them. He wasn't a bad sort, Mickey, and he would have objected to their criminal activities. Whichever horrible reason they invented, though, mark my words: Someday--maybe this year, maybe next, maybe 10 years from now, but someday--Mickey Smith's body will turn up in a ditch. Someday.

It makes me sick to see those two now, coming 'round putting on airs and laughing, calling themselves nonsense like "Sir Doctor" and "Dame Rose of the Powell Estate" and nattering on about all the places they've visited. It's like they think they rule the universe. How can people behave like that? It makes me wonder exactly how many deaths they've caused, and if they have any human feelings or morals at all.

So after hearing my story, you can understand how I've grown to dread the wheezing noise that means Rose and the Doctor have come back. Who knows the next place they'll decide to blow up? It could be this very building!


End file.
